News and Updates


VA Quality Scholars Fellowship Program Now Accepting Applications

The VA Quality Scholars Fellowship Program is now accepting applications for the 2010 Pre-and Post-Doctoral Fellowship for Nurses. Nurse applicants who have a desire to learn how to do, lead, and study health care improvement should consider applying before March 1, 2010. For additional information, download the 2010 Fellowship flyer (PDF).

2010 QSEN Annual Forum Presentations Posted

The presentations from the 2010 Annual Forum have now been posted in the Conferences section, along with any available handouts, in PDF form. Please note that not all presentations are available yet due to permissions issues. If there were specific materials that you wanted but do not seem to be available, or if you are a presenter and wish to add or update your materials, feel free to contact us at segedy@unc.edu.

2nd Annual AHI Duncan Neuhauser Award For Curricular Innovation

In an ongoing effort to encourage the development and dissemination of original curricular materials pertaining to the teaching of improvement in healthcare, AHI is announcing the second annual Duncan Neuhauser Curricular Innovation Awards in Healthcare Improvement. This award, to be presented at the AHI Scientific Symposium on December 6, 2010, will recognize new curricular material that has potential for significant impact in teaching improvement in healthcare, is innovative in its educational approach, and has the ability to be adopted by other schools, institutions, or professions. A first prize of $500 will be awarded, with the second and third place awardees receiving $300 and $200 respectively.

For more information, see the full AHI announcement.

QSEN Leaders in RWJF News Feature

Several of the leading QSEN faculty were recently featured in an article from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation titled Today's Nursing Graduates Are Better Prepared for the Workforce, Experts Say. "This year’s nursing school graduates will benefit from an educational experience that is markedly better than what it was a decade ago. They will need that preparation to navigate a tight job market."

2010 QSEN National Forum Registration Now Closed

The QSEN team is pleased to announce that we have received more than double our estimated number of registrants for the 2010 National Forum! However, we have now reached the maximum number that we can possibly accomodate, and therefore registration is now closed. For those that have registered, we look forward to seeing you in June. For those that weren't able to register, we apologize for closing sooner than planned, and we hope you will consider attending the 2011 Forum.

First Faculty Self-Development Learning Module Released

Module One of the QSEN Learning Module series has been released. This module, "Appreciating the Complexity of Nursing Work: Implications for Nursing Education," explores principles of complexity science and properties of complex adaptive systems and features work by QSEN facilitators Patricia Ebright and Pamela Ironside.

QSEN Videos: Lewis Blackman Story Released

The Lewis Blackman Story, a collection of videos featuring Helen Haskell, is now available on the QSEN website. Ms. Haskell is the mother of Lewis Blackman, a 15-year-old boy who died in a hospital following routine surgery. This lecture and interviews were recorded at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Nursing in summer 2009.

The Lewis Blackman Story

Nursing Outlook 2009 Special Issue Published

The QSEN team is pleased to announce that the 2009 special issue of Nursing Outlook on Quality and Safety is available online. If you are connecting through a university with online subscription access, the link will take you to the article. Without the subscription, access to the full article requires purchase.

Nursing Outlook Special Issue: Quality and Safety Education (Volume 57, Issue 6)

QSEN Site Awarded Sigma Theta Tau Awards

The QSEN team accepted two awards at the Sigma Theta Tau International’s 40th Biennial Convention in Indianapolis, IN. The QSEN website won both the Nursing Media Award and Information Technology Award for Knowledge Advancement.

Sigma Theta Tau Announcement

The Josie King Story Video Now Available on QSEN

The Josie King Story, a video presentation by Sorrell King concerning the medical errors that led to her daughter Josie’s death, is now available in our Videos section.

This video has been generously made available to registered QSEN users by the Josie King Foundation. You will be required to login to your QSEN account- or create a new account if you are not already registered- before viewing the video.

Graduate KSAs Now Available

The Graduate-level KSAs have been published and are now available on our site alongside the pre-licensure KSAs. Those strategies suitable for a graduate coursework have been highlighted in each of the Competency Definition pages.

QSEN Education Consortium Institutes Open for Registration

The QSEN partner organization AACN has opened registration for our Education Consortium Institutes. Information about the 2010 institute locations and deadlines is now listed on our Conferences page, along with links for additional details and registration on the AACN site.

2010 QSEN National Forum opens Call for Abstracts

The 2010 QSEN National Forum, titled "Climbing from Good to Great," will take place in Denver, Colorado on June 2-4. This conference is designed to attract innovators and nurture faculty leaders for the improvement of quality and safety education through exposure to innovations in curricular design and teaching strategies, research related to quality and safety education, and quality improvement or safety studies.

QSEN has announced the Call for Abstracts, with submissions being accepted online starting on September 20th. For more information, see the Conference Details page or contact us at qsen@unc.edu.

University of Colorado Denver College of Nursing receives grant from Colorado Trust

The Colorado Trust, a grantmaking foundation dedicated to achieving access to health for all Coloradans, is supporting the University of Colorado Denver's College of Nursing effort to provide technical assistance and faculty development seminars to nurse education programs statewide to incorporate six quality and safety competencies, including patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety and informatics (i.e., using information and technology to share knowledge, mitigate errors and support decision making). The project is based on key findings from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's national pilot to implement quality and safety education in nurse curricula.

To read the Colorado Trust Grant Announcement see the "University of Colorado Denver's College of Nursing" entry on the Additional Programs page.

Related Links Section Updated

The Related Links section has been updated to add the Integrating Quality Project from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC):

"The Integrating Quality initiative is an organizational performance improvement project that was developed to assist AAMC members in enhancing their dual quality goals of providing outstanding clinical care today while educating the outstanding physicians of tomorrow. The initiative includes three phases that were developed using the AAMC's "Learn, Serve, Lead" model, and involves identifying and making available key resources and QI strategies, as well as developing a network of individuals and partner organizations working to integrate these approaches in their medical centers."

Related Links > Books, Reports and Other Resources

New Teaching Strategies Published, July 2009

The following new teaching strategies were published in July:

RWJF Profile: Amy Barton, QSEN Collaborative Member

QSEN helps Amy Barton bridge the gap between her current position in nursing education, and her previous one, in nursing practice.

"Amy Barton, Ph.D., R.N., describes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Quality and Safety Education for Nurses project (QSEN) as a way to bridge the gap between her current position in nursing education, and her previous one, in nursing practice. The participation in QSEN by the University of Colorado Denver, College of Nursing, where she is an associate professor and the associate dean for clinical and community affairs, has allowed Barton, serving as project director, and colleagues to initiate dramatic changes in the methods used to teach the next generation of nurses."

Profile: Amy Barton, QSEN Collaborative Member

New Phase III QSEN Grant Awarded

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing (UNC) recently received a $1.8 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for part of a new Phase III Quality & Safety Education for Nurses initiative. A companion grant proposal to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) is under review.

Leaders for an exciting, comprehensive faculty development phase of QSEN are: Geraldine (Polly) Bednash (PI-AACN), Linda Cronenwett (PI-UNC), and Jane Barnsteiner (University of Pennsylvania), Joanne Disch (University of Minnesota), Pamela Ironside(Indiana University), Jean Johnson (George Washington University), Shirley Moore (Case Western Reserve University), and Gwen Sherwood (UNC). Dr. Moore also co-leads the national VA Quality Scholars program which, with partial funding from QSEN, will include nursing pre-/post-doctoral scholars in addition to physician scholars in its new funding cycle.

Watch for upcoming details about regional faculty development conferences, QSEN consultants, web-based teaching modules and, in 2010 and 2011, QSEN National Forums for faculty innovators.

Full details of the QSEN/AACN partnership will be announced when the review of the AACN grant is completed in spring 2009.